Steve Martin has apologized after tweeting a racist joke and offending many of his fans on Twitter.

The star of Father of the Bride was having some fun on Twitter, answering questions about grammar rules, in what was one of his usual hilarious social media schticks. Then, things took a bad turn.

One of his followers asked him, "is this how you spell lasonia?"

In a tweet that the 68-year-old actor has since deleted, Martin responded tin a way that is just...baffling:

"It depends. Are you in an African-American neighborhood or at an Italian restaurant."

A user on Twitter caught a screengrab before it was deleted:

I love Steve Martin; he's one of my lifelong comedy idols. But gross. Seriously, just gross.

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Faced with some pretty harsh blowback on Twitter from his fans, the comedian quickly deleted the offensive tweet. He offered an apology:

So first the Justine Sacco debacle and now this? Damn, y'all. Remember when Twitter was just used for when you wanted to tell people you were standing in line at the bathroom at the Bon Jovi concert #peebreak?